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“How much love you have is up to you and while it may seem complicated, it isn’t.  Not really. It’s all about our conversations.  By having honest, courageous, meaningful conversations with your partner, you can foster true connection and a fierce love that will withstand the test of time and grow stronger over the years.”
― Susan Scott, Fierce Love: Creating a Love that Lasts---One Conversation at a Time

“The highest function of the soul of man is the perception of truth; in this accordingly it finds its special delight.”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, The Alchemy Of Happiness

“The healthy, dynamic, and above all else truthful personality will admit to error. It will voluntarily shed—let die—outdated perceptions, thoughts, and habits, as impediments to its further success and growth. This is the soul that will let its old beliefs burn away, often painfully, so that it can live again, and move forward, renewed. This is also the soul that will transmit what it has learned during that process of death and rebirth, so that others can be reborn along with it. Aim at something. Pick the best target you can currently conceptualize. Stumble toward it. Notice your errors and misconceptions along the way, face them, and correct them. Get your story straight. Past, present, future—they all matter. You need to map your path. You need to know where you were, so that you do not repeat the mistakes of the past. You need to know where you are, or you will not be able to draw a line from your starting point to your destination. You need to know where you are going, or you will drown in uncertainty, unpredictability, and chaos, and starve for hope and inspiration. For better or worse, you are on a journey. You are having an adventure—and your map better be accurate. Voluntarily confront what stands in your way. The way—that is the path of life, the meaningful path of life, the straight and narrow path that constitutes the very border between order and chaos, and the traversing of which brings them into balance. Aim at something profound and noble and lofty. If you can find a better path along the way, once you have started moving forward, then switch course. Be”
― Jordan B. Peterson, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life

“Say to my friends, when they look upon me, dead,
Weeping for me and mourning me in sorrow,
‘Do not believe that this corpse you see is myself,
In the name of God, I tell you, it is not I,
I am a spirit, and this is naught but flesh,
It was my abode and my garment for a time.
I am a treasure, by a talisman kept hid,
Fashioned of dust, which served me as a shrine,
I am a pearl, which has left it’s shell deserted,
I am a bird, and this body was my cage,
Whence I have now flown forth and it is left as a token,
Praise to God, who hath now set me free,
And prepared for me my place in the highest of the Heavens,
Until today I was dead, though alive in your midst.
Now I live in truth, with the grave – clothes discarded.
Today I hold converse with the Saints above,
With no veil between, I see God face to face.
I look upon “Loh-i-Mahfuz” and there in I read,
Whatever was and is, and all that is to be.
Let my house fall in ruins, lay my cage in the ground,
Cast away the talisman, it is a token no more,
Lay aside my cloak, it was but my outer garment.
Place them all in the grave, let them be forgotten,
I have passed on my way and you are left behind,
Your place of abode was no dwelling place for me.
Think not that death is death, nay, it is life,
A life that surpasses all we could dream of here,
While in this world, here we are granted sleep,
Death is but sleep, sleep that shall be prolonged
Be not frightened when death draweth nigh,
It is but the departure for this blessed home,
Think of the mercy and love of your Lord,
Give thanks for His Grace and come without fear.
What I am now, even so shall you be,
For I know that you are even as I am,
The souls of all men come forth from God,
The bodies of all are compounded alike,
Good and evil, alike it was ours.
I give you now a message of good cheer
May God’s peace and joy forever more be yours.”
― Abu Hamid al-Ghazali